Being Transparent with your Customers

On March 14th and 15th, 2018, Post&Parcel Live arrives in London for two unique seminars for retail and logistics professionals. The Delivering Customer Satisfaction and Delivering Operational Efficiencies Seminars will look how you can balance the needs of demanding customers and exploit the opportunities to tighten your operational efficiency.

To give you a flavour of what’s to come, we canvassed opinion from some of our speakers about how you can be more transparent throughout the delivery process.

Transparent delivery

Transparency throughout the delivery process can improve overall customer satisfaction. Strategies to improve transparency include showing delivery prices and not having hidden extra costs at checkout, having the ability to track packages, and knowing when the delivery will be made, and where it has been left.

Transparency expectations

To give customers ultimate delivery visibility, many different strategies need to be implemented simultaneously. Andrew Mukerjee, Co-Founder and CEO of Brisqq, says: “Live tracking, simple pricing models, and clear audit trails of the delivery process are all important elements in providing complete transparency to both the retailer and the end shopper.”

Many delivery companies already provide this high-quality service; this has made all customers have higher expectations regarding visibility.

Marie Le Page, CEO UK of Living Packets, reinforces the point that customers are now expecting better transparency. “Until recently, customers had to ‘hope and pray’ that their parcel arrived on time and at the correct destination; fearing that their parcel could be lost or damaged. Customers have become less tolerant of not having this control,” she says. Therefore, it is vital to give customers this control through increasing delivery transparency.

Giving customers answers

To be able to successfully provide this service, we need to understand in more detail, what sort of transparency customers are wanting.

According to Gary O’Connor, CTO of Doddle, there are three key questions that customers are asking regarding visibility. He has provided solutions which can help tackle these issues head on.

Gary says the first question to be asked is: “Where’s my parcel?” He says this can be resolved by “providing tracking information to enable consumers to see where their items are”.

“When will I receive it?” is the next question to be asked by customers, according to Gary. He says that “keeping delivery timeframes updated to enable consumers to plan around delivery” will help solve this issue.

Finally, Gary says that customers will want to know “if the delivery promise can’t be kept, why is this, and what are the new conditions of that delivery.”

Charlie Shiels, CEO of Arrow XL, emphasises the need for open communication: “Tell the customer at the earliest opportunity even if you don’t know the resolution. This allows them to alter their plans – but do tell them what time you will get back to them with the resolution.” Charlie says it is important to admit mistakes and recover from them as it “provides the customer with trust in the brand – we all know that things can go wrong but excellent recovery can often be seen more favourably than a right first-time delivery.”

Karin Cabili, Founder of Dropit, provides similar advice: “Be upfront with a customer if there is an issue and also be understanding. Going the extra mile and being human in your approach certainly makes customers feel more loved and therefore more loyal.”

About The Author

Ian Taylor is the Editor of Triangle’s Mail & Express Review Magazine and the www.postandparcel.info portal. Ian has been a business journalist for almost 30 years, editing and writing for a wide range of magazines and newspapers with a particular focus on the transport and logistics industries.

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